of leaving this place on the 16th: but it will be either to Tusculum or my town house, and thence perhaps to Arpinum. When I know for certain I will write you word.
DLXXXVI (F V, 15)
TO L. LUCCEIUS (AT ROME)
Astura (May)
Your perfect affection manifests itself in every sentence of
the last letter which I received from you: not that it was
anything new to me, but all the same it was grateful to my
feelings and all that I could desire. I should have called it
"delightful," had not that word been lost to me for ever:
and not for that one reason which you imagine, and in
regard to which you chide me severely, though in the
gentlest and most affectionate terms, but because what
ought to have been the remedies for that sorrow are all
gone. Well then! Am I to seek comfort with my friends?
How many of them are there? You know—for they were
common to us both. Some of them have fallen, others I
know not how have grown callous. With you indeed I
might have gone on living, and there is nothing I should
have liked better. Long-standing affection, habit, community
of tastes—what tie, I ask, is there lacking to our
union? Is it possible then for us to be together? Well,
by Hercules, I know not what prevents it: but, at any rate,
we have not been so hitherto, though we were neighbours
at Tusculum and Puteoli, to say nothing of Rome; where, as
the forum is a common meeting-place, nearness of residence
does not matter. But by some misfortune our age has
fallen upon circumstances, which, just when we ought to
be at the very height of prosperity, make us ashamed
even of being alive. For what had I to fly to when deprived
of everything that could afford me distinction or console
my feelings at home or in public life? Literature, I suppose.
Well, I devote myself to that without ceasing. But
